Blogs and Articles from Third Way Forum Membrs

・ It seems many young Japanese people jumped from the traditional “we” culture to the “only me” culture. They try to be assertive but sometimes some of them seem to misunderstand what assertiveness means. They are just speaking one-sidedly without truly talking to somebody.

・ The Western people seem to be much more conscious of the consequences of their actions than before as the data remains indefinitely in the cyber space. As they are afraid of being criticized and isolated in the social media, they seem to pay much more attention to play along with “we”. Especially for the young people, they are so much reliant on social media that it is almost their lifeline. The idea of losing this lifeline makes them more self-censor their post before sending it out with the glorified individualistic attitude.

・ Fear of being isolated from the society was the main driver for the Japanese to always conform to the society. In this sense, the Western people may be developing the similar mindset lately in the digital age as the Japanese did in the old village culture.

・ Self-censorship is good as it reduces bulling in the cyber space. However, if people are given absolute anonymity, some people can still brutally ill-treat people. Psychological safety is important for people to speak up. But absolute anonymity could give a wrong sense of safety for bullies to ill-treat people.

・ Considering recent global issues and trends such as diversity & inclusion, SDGs, environment issues and fight against COVID-19 etc, the further tilting toward the “we” culture seems to be a good thing for humanity. However, when we talk about the “we” culture, we must be careful of the definition of “we”. In Japan, despite its strong emphasis on the “we” culture, the composition of “we” was always pretty narrow. The “we” in Japan often meant middle-aged Japanese salarymen. Women and foreigners were not included in the traditional sense of “we” in Japan.

・ Another thing we need to be careful of is the rapid development of the world of “small We”. It could be also called the world of “my We”. It is the same thing.

・ On the surface, it looks like the Japanese are expressing more individualism in the cyber space and the Westerners more harmony with others. So it looks like the East and the West are happily meeting in the middle. However, in reality both sides seem to be just thrown into the same strange world. It is the world of “small We” or “my We”. Because we are controlled by algorithm, the information we get on daily basis are highly tailored for our individual interests. In this sense, each one of us is becoming more individualistic day by day based on our tailored information which is different from others. Though, at the same time, there are always several others who share very similar interest with you and they are automatically drawn to you by algorithm-driven social media. As a result, you will soon become a part of this small interest group called “small We”. As this interest group is a highly tailored group for your interest, you could also call it “my We”.

・ The world of “small We” or “my We” have producing two big challenges all over the world.

・ 1. People are becoming more indifferent and much less caring about other people who are not in the “my We” group.

・ 2. The world is now further subdivided into millions of “small We” groups and there could be more conflicts and tensions among them. Analogy-wise, it is like peace was achieved among nations but street fights among many different gangs have started. And these gangs are not geographically together but virtually together with strongly united mentality forged by years of algorithm-driven skewed information. In old days, if someone suggests to do something outrageous against the common sense, he could be contained by the majority who had the common sense. However, today in the world of “small We”/“my We”, even an outrageous and potentially dangerous suggestion could get support and traction from the like-minded people all over the world. Whether it’s a conspiracy theory or extreme ideologies or fake news, it could find a way to materialize and even to be weaponized to harm humanity.

・ So although the West and the East may be meeting in the digital age, we may be meeting in a very dangerous world.

・ We, human beings, can not survive alone. However, with advancing digitalization, we get most of our services without interacting with other human beings physically. Therefore, many people misunderstand that they can survive alone in their “small We”/”my We” world. If the enhancement of individualism is happening in Japan due to this misunderstanding, it will probably produce many unhealthy individuals and do some serious damage to the society.

・ There are always both similarities and differences among people. If we focus on similarities, we are talking about the “we” culture. If we focus on differences, we are talking about the “me” culture. In the “we” culture, if we can collaborate and support each other for “Big We” not “small we”, we will be prosperous. In the “me” culture, if we can celebrate differences and learn from each other for “Me for us” instead of fighting against each other for “my We”, we will be prosperous.

・ The Digital world simply amplifies the analog world. At the end of the day, what digitalization brings to us is our own degree of humanity.